Blog #3- Kelsey

So I decided to be brave and try chatroulette, but like most people I made a friend join me because I had no desire to do it by myself. The first person we stopped on waved, showed us his bottle of Budweiser and asked where we were from. I don't know if he didn't have a mic or just wasn't talking but he wrote he was from Russia. We switched after that since he didn't say anything else. A few people hit next before we did, mostly girls, and we hit next on a few guys who weren't wearing shirts. We did have one pair of guys beg us not to hit next and when we asked why they asked us to lift our shirts for them. We hit next quickly after that. A few other guys waved, asked where we were from and what was up. By and large the entire thing made us uncomfortable. Unlike in a chat room where you can be anyone you want and no one sees you, chatroulette puts you face to face with a total stranger and it's entirely disconcerting. I have no problem meeting new people in the 'real world' so to speak, but there is something incredibly weird about using the internet like that. I can definitely see why parents would be uncomfortable with that kind of site being available online because you really never know who's online, and it can be anyone in the world. Needless to say, I will not likely be on chatroulette anytime in the future.

However, I am a big fan of the Skype interface, which I had been using earlier in the day to videochat with a good friend of mine who is currently abroad in France. I've been using Skype for a while now and I love that I can talk face to face with my friends around the world using the internet. The biggest difference is that I can approve who I talk to via Skype and only people with my username can call me. I think that Skype is a safe and very constructive way to use the same video technology chatroulette uses without fear of encountering any questionable characters.